A Question From Atheists

[The Grand Nudger]

You are right. I was not accurate. Pantheism itself is a broad term and refers to various beliefs. The pantheism of Spinoza matches my argument. Also various traditions of Hinduism which believe in a non-personal gods are compatible examples. Yes there are some examples of pantheistic beliefs that attache woo characteristics to the universe, but there are also beliefs that don't do that.

Spinoza was considered to be an atheist because he used the word "God" [Deus] to signify a concept that was different from that of traditional Judeo–Christian monotheism. "Spinoza expressly denies personality and consciousness to God; he has neither intelligence, feeling, nor will; he does not act according to purpose, but everything follows necessarily from his nature, according to law...." Thus, Spinoza's cool, indifferent God differs from the concept of an anthropomorphic, fatherly God who cares about humanity.

He didn't believe that this "god" was an object worthy of worship, and he didn't believe that it was divine or holy.  He didn't believe that it was intentional or intercessionary/personal (the latter being the difference between deism and theism), all in all.......Spinoza clearly had no time for theism -of any kind-, in a time when theism held great authority.  He did have the distinction of being the first identifiable and important philosophical figure in western tradition to approach some of these subjects in the manner that he did..and after the fact (of both his life and work) the title of pantheist was laid on him.  I, and many others since, feel that this post mortem was in error...that spinoza was not a pantheist in any meaningful way, just a spinozas god was not a god in any meaningful way, but an atheist.  After all, if spinozas position was pantheism, and the position of others who seek to establish that the universe is like a god, in meaningful ways, and worthy of worship is pantheism..then again we have a categorical mismatch, as his is the only outlier of the subset x called pantheism. I think his critics had him dead to rights, but the situation on the ground wasn't exactly favorable for overt and self described "atheists".  He ended up suffering a brutal excommunication from the jewish community, ofc. His reputation never recovered, and his name was used as an -insult- to deride other thinkers with, in the scholarly community of the time - largely dominated by theists or deists, different brands of god believers.

His concept of god differed not only from the abrahamic god, but from other concepts of god or the divine..such as, for example, those contained in the vedas (which probably require a term other than pantheism to accurately describe them as well).  Simply lacking the attribute of being personal is not enough to establish that they are not god concepts, comments on divinity, or woo free... because many gods were not believed to be personal - this isn't a distinguishing characteristic in the overall field that makes something "not a god" and it;s certainly not the only woosterish quality of the whole set x, gods.

In fact, his concept of a god differed so much from those other concepts..that it's clear that spinoza and any brand of theist -or- atheist aren't even having the same conversation when they discuss "god". Sound familiar? IMHO, spinozas "god" was just a clever way of demonstrating to people that what they had attributed to gods was not, in fact, correct or accurate. That it was the universe that was "doing that shit", no gods required.